“Saturday Night Live host Timothée Chalamet made the most of his opportunity to promote his latest film, the upcoming movie musical Wonka, following the end of the 118-day SAG-AFTRA strike that banned actors from promoting any work for the studios.
In his opening monologue, after joking that all he could talk about during the strike was his perfume commercial directed by Martin Scorsese – “When you get the call that Martin Scorsese wants to direct you, the first thing you think is, ‘Man, I really hope it’s a perfume commercial'” – Chalamet then broke into song, singing about the strike to the tune of “Pure Imagination”.
“Come with me, and you’ll be in a world of shameless self-promotion – it’s OK, I can say…” the actor sang, before immediately turning to the camera to plug “Wonka’s” premiere on December 15 and play up his co-star Hugh Grant’s “Oompa Loompa dump truck”.
Then Chalamet was back to singing, name-dropping Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” and his own highly anticipated sci-fi epic “Dune: Part Two,” in which Chalamet stars as the messianic Paul Atreides. The actors’ strike prompted Warner Bros. to delay the film’s release from November 3 to March 15, taking it out of this year’s awards season.
After making a joke about A.I.-generated crowds, Chalamet was interrupted by “SNL” cast member Marcello Hernandez for what appeared to be the actor’s original plan for the monologue: A rap duet about being a baby-faced ladykiller: “I got a baby face, but my hips don’t lie, say I’m a bad kid, bitch, I’m a bad guy. I got a baby face but I’m hung like my dad, trust me baby, I’m the best you ever had”. They were eventually joined by Punkie Johnson as Nicki Minaj and Kenan Thompson as himself.
